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The power of the podium: The Olympics and sports marketing

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On this week's episode of What's at Stake, managing partner Andy Whitehouse talks to our director of marketing, Owen McNamee, about the complex strategies behind consumer branding and sponsorships at the Olympics. 

Together, they look at the opportunities for brands and athletes to create harmonious partnerships  while still working in their best interests. They also discuss how brands seek to reach their objectives while navigating within the tight parameters set by the International Olympic Committee. 

Tune in for this compelling discussion as you cheer on your country and your favorite athletes on their quest for gold.


Speaker 1:

Hello everybody and welcome to this week's episode of what's at Stake. I'm your host, Andy Whitehouse, coming to you from Penter's offices in New York City, and I'm joined by Owen McNamee, Penter's Director of Marketing. Welcome to the podcast. Owen Cheers Andy Delighted to be here. So we're recording this on day three of the Paris 2024 Olympics, and today's episode is focused around the games that we're going to be talking, in particular, about the way that brands and companies seek to use the games to capture the attention of billions of viewers all around the world. It's been a really exciting start to the games already to say this is day three, I think. As of now, the top four spots on the medal table are dominated by countries from Asia Pacific. Have you seen any of the games yet, Owen? Are you watching?

Speaker 2:

I've watched the opening ceremony and I have, believe it or not, been deeply invested in the fencing and a few other sports as well. So, yeah, I'm really enjoying it so far. There were moments in the four-hour opening ceremony where I was wondering had I made the wrong decisions in life? But yeah, ultimately I thought it was quite a success.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I thought it was wonderful. But beyond the thrill of the competition that we'll be seeing unfolding in the coming days, there's another race going on behind the scenes at the Games, a race amongst brands to capture the attention of billions of viewers around the world. So in today's episode we're going to explore the fascinating world of consumer branding at the Olympics and perhaps talk a little bit about elite sports and sponsorships and branding more broadly. Thank you, owen, for joining us on the podcast to talk those subjects through.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, thanks, it seems. In a strange way, it seems things have come full circle about maybe it's almost nearly coming up to. 15 years ago I did an MBA specializing in sports marketing in Paris, so in a strange way this feels like coming full circle to talk about this today. But yeah, like you said, I think it's a fascinating opportunity and a fascinating kind of competition in behind the scenes of the event to consider how brands are trying to like capture consumers' attention during these, which is by no means easy when so many people want to do it.

Speaker 1:

You're the perfect man for today's conversation, owen, so let's start with the basics. How do companies think about making their brands come to life in the context of the Olympics of 2024? How do you see this having changed over time? So, today, compared to previous games, yeah, good question.

Speaker 2:

The thing around the Olympics specifically is that and it's very much the case for the athletes that are in focus over these two weeks, but the Olympics is really what we have to consider as an Olympic cycle is the four years of the Olympic cycle and within that and I think the thing that makes Olympic sponsorships quite complicated is you have quite a patchwork of kind of competing rights and competing levels of rights holders, down from the International Olympic Committee sitting at the top, running the Olympics, obviously, but then below that the National Olympic Committees which will select the athletes to go to the games, the national governing bodies who run the sports on a day-to-day basis, and then the individual athletes.

Speaker 2:

So if you were to compare it to, let's say, the NFL, it's a much more managed and somewhat more straightforward product in terms of the rights, but there's a much more complicated and nuanced levels of rights involved and it's international as well. So it's quite complicated from that perspective. From that perspective In terms of it evolving, what we've seen is from very basic kind of, from sneaker wars Jesse Owens being handed a pair of runners by Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas through to today. The Olympic Partnership Program is thought to be around the kind of $300 million mark in terms of getting involvement, which gives the companies who make that investment the exclusive rights to the Olympic Games and around the Olympic Games. Those will effectively be the only ones seen directly associated with the Games in the two-week period of the Games.

Speaker 1:

So it takes a little bit behind the scenes. Owen, give us a sense for a brand manager or for someone in a marketing role like yours. What would go into the planning of a sponsorship at the Olympics or some kind of brand activation in Paris associated with the Games?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So the first thing to probably avoid is a conversation in July just before the Games. You go oh, can we do something around the Olympics? It really is, and has to be, a very kind of long-term project and really, like I was suggesting, it's really for the four-year cycle of the games. This is the moment that those brands will have really paid for, when all the attention is.

Speaker 2:

But it's really about making sure that at a base level, when a company is deciding to make that investment in the sponsorship, what they're hoping to get from it is a kind of a shared halo effect from the glory of the sport, from the enjoyment of the sport, from the values of the sport and for that to be reflected, essentially a symbiotic relationship formed between the sport, between the athlete and the games. So the first thing to consider really is how the brand aligns with the value of the sport, with the value of the athlete or what it is exactly. What are the objectives of that sponsorship and how the brand hopes to achieve that through the sport. And it all flows from there. To a certain extent.

Speaker 2:

We've all seen sponsorships don't necessarily align very well or seem a bit at odds, maybe, with the brand. And while there can still be value in that for some certain purposes, it probably won't work out in the long run and eventually someone will say why did we spend all that money anyway? Really tight alignment about what, what they hope to achieve, what are the objectives from the sponsorship through to like how they were going to activate around the, around the sponsorship and then evaluating what's happened and and then probably tweaking on a yearly or bi-yearly basis what's happened to it to adjust their kind of relationship is there a campaign or two from this year's games that that has particularly caught your eye, or anything from the past that you think really stands out as a great example of time and money well invested?

Speaker 2:

At times there are moments that some of the campaigns can blend into one, if you imagine, because it can be quite tricky to have both a global campaign that also appeals at a local level, and that's really one of the things I would say is. The other kind of essential point is that, while there needs to be a balance between that global level of selecting something that's meaningful in every market, that's relevant to the brand, but then there needs to be a level below that of, okay, what do we do in a local market? And as I was saying at the start, let's say, if we have one of the top sponsors, what they'll probably need to do in individual markets is take individual sports or individual athletes with those markets in order to activate a round. So it's not just the payment to the International Olympic Committee for the rights at that level, but also probably activating at a local level, getting some local athletes into their branded kit or whatever it is, or doing interesting activations around it. So it really needs to be considered a bit of every level. So back to your question, the ones that I find are least memorable.

Speaker 2:

I can think of a few of generic campaigns at a global level that have maybe been voiced over slightly differently, depending on the market. And then the successful ones, the few that really actually stick to my mind, are a little bit out of left field. I've really found the advertisements around quite a niche kind of example. But the Channel 4's advertising of the Paralympic Games I found actually really interesting. They were mainly around kind of treating Paralympics on equal footing with the Olympics and were really interesting and moving in that way and I've got a bit of a soft spot or I think it's a great strategy as well to take both the Olympic team of a country along with the Paralympic team and really treat them as equals. It's a great message and I think it really starts to cut through a lot more than just making the obvious choice of picking the most famous athlete.

Speaker 1:

Great Thanks, owen. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we'll hear more about consumer branding and marketing, but lead sporting events new Olympics and beyond.

Speaker 3:

Penta is the world's first comprehensive stakeholder solutions firm. We are a one-stop shop for the intelligence and strategy leaders need to assess a company's reputation and make decisions that improve their positioning as executives in the C-suite must account for a growing set of engaged stakeholders, all with distinct, fast-changing demands. Penta provides real-time intelligence and strategy solutions. We work with clients solving complex global challenges across a variety of industries. Our clients span technology, financial services, energy, healthcare and more. To learn more about how Penta can support your company, check out our website at pentagroupco, our Twitter at PentaGRP or find us on LinkedIn at Penta Group.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to what's at Stake. I'm Andy Whitehouse. I'm here with Owen McNamee talking about branding and sponsorship around the Olympics, the Paralympics and elite sports more generally. Before we get into a sort of broader discussion of sponsorship of sporting events, sporting teams and individuals, I'd be interested to hear you say a little bit, if it's all right, owen, about how we should think about the distinction between supporting individual athletes or perhaps doing something that's more like a team sponsorship in the context of the Olympics or elsewhere.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's an interesting point there's. I think it's becoming more and more relevant. There was a New York Times article recently that reported that Olympic athletes were receiving a lot of additional fees around their try on hauls and on TikTok and stuff like this. And it's, I think, like one of the most interesting examples in recent years outside of the Olympics was probably Naomi Osaka when she started to refuse to do interviews around some of the tennis tournaments and there was a bit of pushback against that and I think there was legitimate concerns for her kind of mental health. But there was perhaps the somewhat legitimate criticism about it was there was this tension between the competition as a product and what she could do herself in filming a 30 second TikTok and getting paid 10 times as much. So possibly a little bit short-sighted in kind of maybe undermining the status of the traditional competition while thinking about her kind of individual brand.

Speaker 2:

For Olympic athletes, then, are in the large part in a really different kind of situation. Generally there's still the sprinters and the tennis players and the basketball players who are generally incredibly well-paid athletes, but for the majority of Olympic athletes they're living on subsistence grants from their national governing bodies or their host nations to make a living. So there's a tension, definitely around the Olympics. The spotlight is on them. They have an opportunity to get some attention and to get some money as a reward for their activity essentially, or for their profile more so.

Speaker 2:

So, but there's a lot of restrictions in what they can do, in what they can do around the games. There's rule 40 of the Olympic Charter really limits what they can do in a window around the games and limits the access of brands to their sponsored athlete. So, like I was saying at the top, there's always this kind of tension between the different rights holders involved. It's a little bit more complex than in sponsoring, maybe a more kind of like straightforward kind of sporting event. We have these different layers of complexity of rights holders and who can do what at each point, and the individual athlete can often find it difficult to there's a balance for the individual athlete between claiming what they can for themselves and then also promoting the sport, staying within the rules of what they're expected to do within the Olympics. But yeah, I find all of that quite kind of fascinating, that kind of tension.

Speaker 1:

I find all of that quite kind of fascinating, that kind of tension. So one thing we've seen, I think, in our work with clients at Penta, in the world of sports but also in entertainment and the media entertainment industry and in technology, is a sort of a coming together of various elements of those different sectors in and around the production of sports, different sectors in and around the production of sports, so sports moving in a more quantitative, measured, heavily professionalized direction, beyond what happens on the field or on the pitch, into the business of sports as well. How do you see those?

Speaker 2:

changes influencing the way that marketers or sponsors think about sports as a context, the way that brands approach working with sports teams or with individual athletes. You can see it to a certain extent in the IOC's efforts to really, when we have such huge sponsors involved, their efforts to make sure that those sponsors have an absolutely clean space for their brands and that there are the only brands that kind of have the rights to click through, to click to break through during the Olympics. And that extends down for the IRC, extends to them working with the governments of their host nations in putting in additional legislation in place so that if anyone even looks to like pass off as an olympic sponsor, that they'll be cracked down on really heavily. I remember a friend of mine was telling me that when he was in london 2012, the, the hair dryer or the the hand dryers in in the bathrooms were dyson, but they had the names taped. The dyson brand was taped over because they weren't, uh, part of the olympic program. So there's that element for the rights holders of making sure that that the brands that they're working with get an absolutely as as high a kind of return as possible, making sure that no, like there's always a temptation probably worked for brands like that in the past to do attempt a bit of guerrilla marketing, to try and get some attention during an event or to try and do something maybe slightly outside of the rules. But yeah, it's really important for the rights holders then to crack down on that as much as possible.

Speaker 2:

And then, as we move, more and more of this is the engagement or the or the breakthrough of sports into people's consciousness is happening through digital formats, which again lend itself, on one hand, to greater control, so the rights holder themselves can control what's released and crack down on maybe illegal broadcasts or of people uploading parts of their show, essentially their sport or their games.

Speaker 2:

But then also there's a balance there to be struck between people being able to share and discuss the things that they like and third parties making money off the show that these sports are creating. And I think in the end the balance is probably for the brands themselves. We've seen with the NBA, with F1, to a certain extent with the Major League Baseball as well, creating their own channels through which they can control these things and release them. The worst tends to happen when people leave these sports unable to be watched and then people take it upon themselves to pirate it or to reload clips or whatever it is. So it's always a kind of a balancing act that the rights holders and the brands have to walk.

Speaker 1:

What do you see as being the biggest challenges for brands today as they think about the task of sponsoring a team in elite sports or sponsoring an individual athlete? What are the major challenges, the things that you see brands as being worried about as they think about sponsorships?

Speaker 2:

Well, it's like I said at the top as well. It's in its ideal form. Sponsorship promises to get all of to, to reflect all of the glory, to reflect all the enjoyment that people take from sport onto the brand. But if it can see, if it seems artificial, or if it's it seems pushed, or if it if there isn't a good fit and or if there, even from a values perspective, there's clear contradictions between, maybe individual athletes or the team and the brand that's trying to sponsor them. That's obviously a major concern and will probably lead to poor outcomes for both parties. So it's really important that the brand, that the sporting event, the athlete, the brand is vetted in advance.

Speaker 2:

That and there's always with kind of individuals and individual athletes and no less high profile millionaire athletes there's always a risk that something off out of something bad will happen. Or they will do something bad or they will do something bad that will reflect on them. Part of that, from a sponsor's perspective, is to make sure that all of the legal precautions are in place. Like I don't know if someone drunkenly crashes into a tree after having a fight with their wife, after several affairs or whatever, they probably will be dropped like a hot potato and they will be do so legally. The classic example as well as Lance Armstrong, after the Tour de France scandals, was eventually dropped and sued by the US Postal Service for all of the money that they had sponsored and given them over the years.

Speaker 2:

So the worst case scenario is a disaster and then probably on the other end of that spectrum is a sponsorship that seems forced. That doesn't fit very well together. I think the way that brands can mitigate that is there's always a temptation to be particularly visible, to be particularly pushing the brand, to basically label every open space, but often like less is more, and showing that your brands are, that your values are in line with the team, with the rest of it, that you want to support the team in an authentic way, is a better strategy than just stick a label everywhere and expect that to do something Right, because I guess there's.

Speaker 1:

Obviously there's huge benefits that can come from being associated with a successful individual athlete or a successful team. But in the end, the goal for every brand is to is for them to be meaningfully associated with with a success. But you've, I suppose, to some degree you've also just got to be willing to give up a bit of control. If you're a brand that's going to gonna sponsor an individual athlete or a team that you can't maybe have the same level of of control and ownership of your brand when you put it out into that kind of context, do you?

Speaker 2:

agree with? Yeah, definitely, it's. Again, it's a balance. I've worked with rights holders, I've worked with agents of athletes, I've also worked with NGBs and then brands, so I've covered the gambit of it and it's often, yeah, particularly with individual athletes, there's a temptation to sometimes to say, okay, really tightly control exactly what's required and that might not work as well. The athlete will maybe feel somewhat resentful towards being imposed upon Again. That depends on the athlete will maybe feel somewhat resentful towards being imposed upon again. That depends on the athlete, because if they're super well paid already, they might find it an inconvenience. If they're more glad olympic athlete, the typical olympic athlete that I was talking about, if they're receiving something very generous for it, they'll be probably only too happy to oblige. Um, so. So there's always a balance between formalizing exactly what's expected and then leaving it a little bit vague and leaving the room for them to feel valued or whatever and want to perform in that sponsorship or sponsoree role to the best of their ability.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I think that's right, and I'm also just very struck that now people often talk about how sport should just be focused on sport, but it's increasingly the case, I think, that managers, players, team captains are expected to weigh in on a whole host of other subjects, including politics, other subjects including politics, and that, on the one hand, obviously presents perhaps a challenge to sponsors, but also is just a reflection of the reality of the way that the world works, and you talked about sports being at the center of everything. So it's perhaps somewhat inevitable that celebrities in this particular category are now having to do much more than just talk about the thing that they do professionally.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think it's always been a challenge for athletes and there's obviously been famous moments, particularly around the Olympics, where the question of whether something strays into from the sporting to the political has been in obvious cases has been really in the center stage, and maybe not as much in the Olympics, bizarrely enough, but certainly with FIFA and UEFA international events we've seen loads of cases where that kind of line between political and sporting is blurred and yeah, I think it's pretty tricky. A good example recently was Mbappe from the French national team coming out quite very much against the hard right in France at the very start of the recent UEFA football championships, the Euros. Fortunately for him, the hard right didn't get into power in France, but I don't know if that would have affected his selection opportunities as the clear star of the French national team. It was a somewhat risky move, I think. On balance, in that case, I think I generally respect him for it.

Speaker 1:

One thing that I think is striking about the Olympics. I guess it's true in some other sports as well in golf perhaps, but maybe in the tennis that there are some very long-term sponsorship relationships for the Olympics, that sponsors that have chosen to support the Games for decades. I'd be interested to hear you talk a bit, owen, about how brands should think about those sorts of long-term opportunities, multi-event sponsorships versus something more one-off, and to what degree you think it's important for a brand that's deciding to do something very long term to continue to evolve their approach over the years as the relationship continues consensus is that for sponsorships to be meaningful in reflecting, in having an impact for both parties generally, in response, it should really be in the kind of at least four to five year mark.

Speaker 2:

So it's quite a big responsibility or quite a big investment and long that's long term effectively for a company and a company's planning. So it really is a big thing that needs to be considered very carefully for a brand but can pay off then in the very long term. I still remember the mid-90s. The Liverpool shirt sponsor of Carlsberg and man United were sharp. I'm not sure if I've drunk much Carlsberg or ever bought a sharp TV as a result, but they were definitely stuck in my mind from whatever 10, 11 year old me. So yeah, I think it's really it's part of the. If we were to rewind it all the way back to when a marketing director, cmo, is in the discussions of what a sponsorship would entail, it probably is a matter of okay, we need to be. If they're being honest, they need to make clear that okay, we should be in this for the long haul, for like four or five years at least, if we want to be successful. If you really want to move the dial with this, there should also be a kind of a clear understanding that, in terms of the activation spend, the rights buying the rights is one thing and then actually activating around it is probably at least the same amount of money again. And then to your point in evolving that sponsorship and making sure it's working over the course of the five years really is a matter of setting up really tight, measurable objectives against it in terms of the aspects that they want to move and then really re-evaluating that on a key basis.

Speaker 2:

And when you think about maybe four or five years of the course of a sports team if it's certainly European teams and to a certain extent also in the major leagues in the US five years time a lot will have changed, the rosters will have changed completely, teams will have changed managers et cetera.

Speaker 2:

So it can be tricky from that perspective. I think the one thing I'd like to see more from the sponsorship industry is maybe not making as many of the obvious just like this is the most expensive, most successful athlete or sport or event and making that investment more at a grassroots level. It's like we could make a massive impact with this group or we could really help facilitate this athlete's journey or whatever. I think that would be a kind of a less tapped. It takes more. To a certain extent it takes. It's a. It's an easy enough case to be the third sponsor and on a premier league football team suck. But it takes a little bit more to to really take the route of maybe taking a sport in a particular country and trying to bring it on.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful Thanks. So before we wrap things up, I'm going to ask you a prediction which three countries do you think are going to finish top of the medal table?

Speaker 2:

That is a good question. It's a no-brainer always. And then after that, who will be second? Third France have sent a very large team and a host team. Their medal haul hasn't necessarily rocketed up, but I'd say they'd be happy with the top five. Team GB also have raised their standards so that they're only sending athletes who are medal hopers or thereabouts. So they could do quite well relative to their number. And then again, just from my fencing roots, south korea do quite well. I don't know if it's going to be enough to get them up there. Let me make it. Let me make a proper prediction. I don't know france, and then every place who. I don't pay enough attention to those league tables. I should have done it's the obvious question to ask. I should have done it more. I'm too busy thinking. Why? Thinking, why is that brand on that billboard? Oh, look, that's fair enough.

Speaker 1:

It always does seem that the hosting nation, hosting an Olympic Games is a monumental task of extraordinary expense and investment and planning, but there does always seem to be a sort of magical effect on the, I suppose, for those athletes that are competing in their home country. So I'm going to keep a close eye on France. Anyone from the Republic of Ireland we should be keeping an eye on.

Speaker 2:

The exciting one that I'm interested in is the 400 metre mixed relay. They're looking pretty good for Ireland, maybe to do something in athletics pretty strong at rowing, always strong at boxing just to conform to national stereotypes or whatever. No, it's actually one of the largest irish contingencies at the games in a long time so, and they're particularly well managed at the minute. So fingers crossed there'll be a few medals.

Speaker 1:

We're uh, we're one of the smaller nations hoping to box above our weight rather than dominate the top of the league tables well, I know that our listeners will be checking in a couple of weeks time to see how you've done on your predictions, but thank you very much for joining me for this conversation today. It's been lots of fun. Thank you for tuning in our listeners. Remember to like and to subscribe to what's At Stake. Wherever you listen to your podcasts, I'm your host, andy Whitehouse, as I say, coming to you from Penta's offices in New York. Thanks for listening and we'll look forward to you joining us next time for the next episode of what's at Stake.